From The
Nation May 17, 1845.THE rough outlines
of a plan of Academical Education for Ireland are now
before the country. The plan, as appears from Sir
James Graham's very conciliatory speech, is to be found three Colleges; to give them
£100,000 for buildings, and £6,000 a year for
expenses; to open them to all creeds; the education to be
purely secular; the students not to live within the
Colleges; and the professors to be named and removed, now
and hereafter, by Government.

The announcement of this plan was received in the Commons
with extravagant praise by the Irish Whig and Repeal
members, nor was any hostility displayed except by the
blockhead and bigot, Sir Robert Inglis—a
preposterous fanatic, who demands the repeal of the
Emancipation Act, and was never yet missed from the holy
orgies of Exeter Hall. Out of doors it has had a darker
reception; but now that the first storm of joy and anger
is over, it is time for the people of Ireland to think of
this measure.

It is for them to consider it—it is for them to
decide on it—it is for them to profit by it. For
centuries the Irish were paupers and serfs, because they
were ignorant and divided. The Protestant hated the
Catholic, and oppressed him—the Catholic hated the
Protestant, and would not trust him. England fed the
bigotry of both, and flourished on the ignorance of both.
The ignorance was a barrier between our sects—left
our merchant's till, our farmer's purse, and our state
treasury empty—stupefied our councils in peace, and
slackened our arm in war. Whatsoever plan will strengthen
the soul of Ireland with knowledge, and knit
the sects of Ireland in liberal and trusting friendship,
will be better for us than if corn and wine were scattered
from every cloud.

While 400,000 of the poor find instruction in the
National Schools, the means of education for the middle
and upper classes are as bad now as they were ten or fifty
years ago. A farmer or a shopkeeper in Ireland cannot, by
any sacrifice, win for his son such an education as would
be proffered to him in Germany. How can he afford to pay
the expense of his son's living in the capital, in
addition to Collegiate fees; and, if he could, why should
he send his son where, unless he be an Episcopalian
Protestant, those Collegiate offices which, though they
could be held but by a few score, would influence
hundreds, are denied him. Even to the gentry the distance
and expense are oppressive; and to the Catholics and
Presbyterians of them the monopoly is intolerable.

To bring Academical Education within the reach and means
of the middle classes, to free it from the disease of
ascendency, and to make it a means of union as well as of
instruction, should be the objects of him who legislates
on this subject; and we implore the gentry and middle
classes, whom it concerns, to examine this plan calmly and
closely, and to act on their convictions like firm and
sensible men. If such a measure cannot be discussed in a
reasonable and decent way, our progress to self-government
is a progress to giddy convulsions and shameful ruin.

Let us look into the details of the plan.

It grants £100,000 and £18,000 a year for the
foundation of three Provincial Colleges. The Colleges
proposed are for the present numerous enough. It will be
hard to get competent Professors for even these.
Elementary Education has made great way; but the very
ignorance for which these Institutions are meant as a
remedy makes the class of Irishmen fit to
fill Professors' chairs small indeed; and, small as it is,
it yearly loses its best men by emigration to London,
where they find rewards, fame, and excitement. The
dismissal, hereafter, of incompetent men would be a
painful, but—if pedants, dunces, and cheats were
crammed into the chairs—an unavoidable task. A
gradual increase of such Colleges will better suit the
progress of Irish intelligence than a sudden and final
endowment. But though the Colleges are enough, and the
annual allowance sufficient, the building fund is
inadequate—at least double the sum would be needed;
but this brings us to another part of the plan—the
residence of the students outside the College.

To the extern residence we are decidedly opposed. It
works well in Germany, where the whole grown population
are educated; but in Ireland, where the adult population
are unhappily otherwise, 'tis a matter of consequence to
keep the students together, to foster an academic spirit
and character, and to preserve them from the stupefying
influences of common society. However, this point is but
secondary, so we pass from it, and come to the two great
principles of the Bill.

They are—Mixed Education and Government Nomination;
and we are as resolute for the first as we are against the
second.

The objections to separate Education are immense; the
reasons for it are reasons for separate life, for mutual
animosity, for penal laws, for religious wars. 'Tis said
that communication between students of different creeds
will taint their faith and endanger their souls. They who
say so should prohibit the students from associating
out of the Colleges even more than
in them. In the Colleges they will be joined
in studying mathematics, natural philosophy, engineering,
chemistry, the principles of reasoning, the constitution
of man. Surely union in these studies would
less peril their faith than free communication out of
doors. Come, come, let those who insist on unqualified
separate Education follow out their principles—let
them prohibit Catholic and Protestant boys from playing,
or talking, or walking together—let them mark out
every frank or indiscreet man for a similar
prohibition—let them establish a theological
police—let them rail off each sect (as the Jews used
to be cooped) into a separate quarter; or rather, to save
preliminaries, let each of them proclaim war in the name
of his creed on the men of all other creeds, and fight
till death, triumph, or disgust shall leave him leisure to
revise his principles.

These are the logical consequences of the doctrine of
Separate Education, but we acquit the friends of it of
that or any other such ferocious purpose. Their intentions
are pious and sincere—their argument is dangerous,
for they might find followers with less virtue and more
dogged consistency.

We say an unqualified separate Education,
because it is said, with some plausibility, that the
manner in which theology mixes up with history and moral
philosophy renders common instruction in them almost
impossible. The reasoning is pushed too far. Yet the
objection should be well weighed; though we warn those who
push it very far not to fall into the extravagance of a
valued friend of ours, who protested against one person
attempting to teach medicine to Catholics and Protestants,
as one creed acknowledged miraculous cures and demoniacal
possessions, and the other rejected both!

It should be noted, too, that this demand for separate
Professors does not involve separate
Colleges, does not assume that any evil would result from
the friendship of the students, and does not lead to the
desperate, though unforeseen, conclusions which follow
from the other notion.

'Tis also a different thing to propose the establishment
of Deans in each College to inspect the
religious discipline and moral conduct of the
students—a Catholic Dean, appointed by the Catholic
Church, watching over the Catholic students; and so of the
Episcopalians and Presbyterians. Such Deans, and Halls for
religious teaching, will be absolutely necessary, should a
residence in the Colleges be required; but should a system
or residence in registered lodgings and boarding-houses be
preferred, similar duties to the Deans might be performed
by persons nominated by the Catholic, Protestant, and
Presbyterian Churches respectively, without the direct
interposition of the College; for each parent would take
care to put his child under the control of his own Church.
An adequate provision in some sufficient manner for
religious discipline is essential, and to be dispensed
with on no pretence.

These, however, are details of great consequence to be
discussed in the Commons' Committee; but we repeat our
claim for mixed education, because it has worked well
among the students of Trinity College, and would work
better were its offices free, because it is the principle
approved by Ireland when she demanded the opening those
offices, and when she accepted the National
Schools—because it is the principle of the Cork, the
Limerick, and the Derry meetings; but above all, because
it is consistent with piety, and favourable to that union
of Irishmen of different sects, for want of which Ireland
is in rags and chains.

Against the nomination of Professors by Government we
protest altogether. We speak alike of Whig or Tory. The
nomination would be looked on as a political
bribe, the removal as a political punishment. Nay, the
nomination would be political. Under
great public excitement a just nomination might be made,
but in quiet times it would be given to the best
mathematician or naturalist who attended the
levee and wrote against the opposition. And it would be an
enormous power; for it would not merely control the
immediate candidates, but hundreds, who thought they might
some ten years after be solicitors for professorships,
would shrink from committing themselves to uncourtly
politics, or qualify by Ministerial partisanship, not
philosophical study, for that distant day. A better engine
for corrupting that great literary class which is the best
hope of Ireland could not be devised; and if it be
retained in the Bill, that Bill must be resisted and
defeated, whether in or out of Parliament. We warn the
Minister!

We have omitted a strange objection to the
Bill—that it does not give mixed education. It is
said the Colleges of Cork and Galway would be attended
only by Catholics, and that of Belfast by Protestants.
Both are errors. The middle class of Protestants in Cork
is numerous—they and the poorer gentry would send
their sons to the Cork College to save expense. The
Catholics would assuredly do the same in Belfast; they do
so with the Institution In the Academy there already; and
though the Catholics in Cork, and the Protestants in
Belfast, would be the majorities, enough of the opposite
creed would be in each to produce all the wholesome
restraint, and much of the wholesome toleration and
goodwill, of the mixed system of Trinity. Were the
objection good, however, it ought to content the advocates
of separate education.

It has been said, too, that the Bill recognises a
religious ascendency in the case of Belfast. This seems to
us a total misconception of the words of the Minister. He
suggested that the Southern College should be in Cork, the
Western in Limerick or Galway, the Northern in Derry or
Belfast. Had he stopped at Derry the mistake could never
have occurred; but he went on to say that if the College
were planted in Belfast, the building now used for the
Belfast Academy would serve for the new College, and unless the echoes of the old theological
professors be more permanent than common, we cannot
understand the sectarianism of the building
in Belfast.

A more valid objection would be that the measure was not
more complete; and the University system will certainly be
crippled and impotent unless residence for a year at least
in it be essential to a University degree.

The main defect of the Bill is its omitting to deal with
Trinity College. It is said that the property is and was
Protestant; but the Bill of '93, which admitted Catholics
to be educated on this Protestant foundation, broke down
the title; and, at all events, the property is as public
as the Corporation, and is liable to all the demands of
public convenience. But it is added that the property of
Trinity College is not more than £30,000 or
£40,000 a year, and that the grant for Catholic
Clerical Education alone is £20,000 a year; and
certainly till the Protestant Church be equalised to the
wants of the Protestant population there will be something
in the argument. When that Reformation comes, a third of
the funds should be given for Protestant Clerical
Education, and the College livings transferred to the
Clerical College, and the remaining two-thirds preserved
to Trinity College as a secular University.

Waiting that settlement, we see nothing better than the
proposal so admirably urged by the

Morning Chronicle, of the
grant of £6,000—we say £10,000—a
year, for the foundation of Catholic fellowships and
scholarships in Trinity College. Some such change must be
made, for it would be the grossest injustice to give
Catholics a share, or the whole, of one or two new,
untried, characterless Provincial Academies, and exclude
them from the offices of the ancient, celebrated, and
national University. If there is to be a religious
equality, Trinity College must be opened, or augmented by
Catholic endowment. For this no demand can be too loud and
vehement, for the refusal will be an affront
and a grievance to the Catholics of Ireland.

We have only run over the merits and faults of this plan.
Next to a Tenure or a Militia Bill, it is the most
important possible. Questions must arise on every section
of it; and, however these questions be decided, we trust
in God they will be decided without acrimony or
recrimination, and that so divine a subject as Education
will not lead to disunions which would prostrate our
country.